The Most Important Train on This Railway Carried Only Water

During the First World War, the most important train on a brand-new railway across Australia's Nullarbor Plain carried no passengers, no steel and no timber. It carried water, because the desert the line crossed had almost none. This is the full story of how the Trans-Australian Railway was built: why Western Australia demanded it as part of joining the new nation, how thousands of men and animals were kept alive with water trains, bores and camel strings, how the work trains and track-laying machines pushed the rails across the plain, how one section became the longest straight stretch of railway in the world, and what happened when the two ends finally met near Ooldea on 17 October 1917. We also honour the people behind it: the Aboriginal peoples of the Nullarbor, including the Mirning; the goldfields communities who pushed for the line; Lord Denman, Henry Deane and the Commonwealth engineers; the surveyors and cameleers; the track gangs, ballast crews and fettlers; and the families of the railway sidings and the crews of the Tea and Sugar Train who kept them supplied for generations. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 The train that carried water 01:40 The most isolated state 02:16 The Nullarbor: a plain with no trees 03:43 A railway born from a promise 05:37 1911: the go-ahead and the three gauges 06:45 The first sod at Port Augusta 07:17 Trains, bores and camels: the water plan 09:29 The work train and the track-laying machine 11:38 Easy ground, brutal conditions 12:31 The longest straight railway on Earth 13:21 The two lines close in 13:45 17 October 1917: the rails meet 15:17 The first train across the continent 15:59 The Tea and Sugar Train 17:35 One gauge, coast to coast 18:47 The people who built it 20:57 Next on Oz Built 🏗️ ABOUT OZ BUILT Oz Built tells the stories behind Australia's greatest feats of engineering: the machines, the people and the impossible numbers behind the builds that shaped a nation. New documentaries every week. 👉 Subscribe so you don't miss the next build: [LINK DO CANAL]?sub_confirmation=1 💬 Have you ever crossed the Nullarbor, by train or by road? Tell us in the comments. ▶️ Watch next: How Convicts in Chains Built Australia's Great North Road -    • How Convicts in Chains Built Australia's G...   📚 SOURCES & ARCHIVE Historical photographs and film courtesy of [LISTE AQUI OS ACERVOS USADOS]. Research based on Commonwealth Railways records, newspapers of the time and published histories of the Trans-Australian Railway. ℹ️ NOTE This documentary is a narrative built from the historical record and our interpretation of it, made for education and entertainment. The Nullarbor is still one of the most remote regions in Australia: if you travel across it, carry extra water and fuel, and make sure someone knows your route. #Nullarbor #TransAustralianRailway #AustralianHistory